Schlagwort-Archive: green

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Exploring eco-friendly strategies for cities, this series of conceptual ‘Smart Tower’ skyscrapers and mid-rise structure incorporates design elements to reduce pollution and create renewable energy all while integrating with existing built environments.

Designed by Vincent Callebaut Architectures, each of these typologies is set in Paris – many draw on local elements both all are conceived more broadly as having potential applications in urban contexts around the world.

The proposals, named and detailed below, vary in their realism but are intended to provoke discussion, helping planners consider new ways to adapt existing buildings and infrastructure for cleaner and greener use in the near future.

Mountain Towers: supported by the unused chimneys of existing buildings below, these power-generating additions draw solar energy and use a reversible hydroelectrical pumped storage system to pull up and send down hot water.

Antismog Towers: set along disused rail lines, this piece of the project combines cycling paths and urban gardens with cyclonic towers to clean the air and wind turbines to generate electricity.

Inspired by the movement of leaves in the wind, New Wind founder Jérôme Michaud-Larivière developed this project with technology and aesthetics equally in mind, conceiving of these as part public art and part civic infrastructure.

Even the tiniest gusts of wind (starting at a few miles per hour) will turn the small blades secreted away within each individual leaf making them well-suited to all sorts of city environments. Each blade can rotate and generate power in both directions.

A prototype has already been deployed in Paris and the idea is to eventually roll out small pockets (or perhaps: forests) in various public spaces, from gardens and parks to squares and shopping centers.

Currently, the plan is to power street lamps or energize electric car charging stations. Eventually the hope is to add photovalics to the trunks and branches, adding energy-harvesting capacity in another form to the same structures.

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Shaping both living spaces and modular work studios, a set of shipping containers were combined with a series of green building strategies to make this a place the ultimate home for a versatile creative with professional spatial needs.

Eight used cargo containers provided a starting point for the design by architect Maria José Trejos in Costa Rica (photos by Sergio Pucci, enclosing rooms around the periphery of the plan and leaving a central day-lit void for photography, gatherings and natural cross-ventilation.

The staggered containers create porches, patios and decks on the upper levels while framing social spaces, including a kitchen and dining room, on the main floor.

As the architect describes it, “The house dresses and undresses according to what you want to use it for, be it a living room, an audiovisual space, a photographic or advertising studio.”

A reflective roof and rain harvesting techniques help keep the building cool and create graywater reserves, while the central open volume has raised windows for cross-ventilation purposes. Natural light and cooling help reduce energy consumption and associated costs.

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A creative response to a new legal loophole, this structure is designed specifically to test the limits of a Swedish planning law allowing buildings under a certain size to be constructed without prior structure-specific approval.

Jägnefält Milton of Stockholm worked with Arup engineers to work within the confines proposed by the legislation, which include dimensional limits of 25 square meters and 4 meters in height.

The intent, though, is not to push the limits but to respect their intent and create a low-footprint, eco-friendly pavilion that respects its environment.

The design calls for using the timber cleared from the site to construct the structure and use a tension system of structural anchors to maximize views, minimize outside materials and take advantage of a large stone on the site.

Supported off the ground, the lower platform is mirrored by a roof of the same organic leaf-like shape and a fabric cover can be deployed around the entire building to provide some privacy as well.

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Breaking down one of the most difficult types of trash, this incredible working incubator turns sterilized plastic remnants into nutritional biomass humans can consume and digest, in short: food. Texture, taste and flavor depend upon the strain of fungus, but reportedly can be quite strong as well as quite sweet.

Livin Studio, an Austrian design group known for innovative work on insect farms, has built a working model of this growth sphere (dubbed the Fungi Mutarium) that takes parts of mushrooms usually left uneaten and grows them into fresh snacks.

From the creators: “We were working with fungi named Schizophyllum Commune and Pleurotus Ostreatus. They are found throughout the world and can be seen on a wide range of timbers and many other plant-based substrates virtually anywhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australia. Next to the property of digesting toxic waste materials, they are also commonly eaten. As the fungi break down the plastic ingredients and don’t store them, like they do with metals, they are edible.”

In terms of the process, “Fungi Mutarium is a prototype that grows edible fungal biomass, mainly the mycelium, as a novel food product. Fungi is cultivated on specifically designed agar shapes that the designers called FU. Agar is a seaweed based gelatin substitute and acts, mixed with starch and sugar, as a nutrient base for the fungi. The FUs are filled with plastics. The fungi is then inserted, it digests the plastic and overgrows the whole substrate. The shape of the FU is designed so that it holds the plastic and to offer the fungi a lot of surface to grow on. “

For now, the digestion is a relatively slow process, taking up to a few months for a set of cultures to fully mature, but by the standards of plastic biodegrading in nature this is still an extraordinary feat. The team continues to work with university researchers to make the process faster and more efficient. “Scientific research has shown that fungi can degrade toxic and persistent waste materials such as plastics, converting them into edible fungal biomass.”

This novel application comes just a few years after a group of Yale students discovered a species of fungi on a trip to Ecuador as part of a Rainforest Expedition and Labratory led by a molecular biochemist. Even in the absence of light and air, the species they examined thrived in landfill environments, suggesting potential near-future and larger-scale solution for existing waste sites as well.

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Designed to provide a spaces for public gardening as well as senior living, this hybrid complex has a rich array of green roofs, terraces and facades allowing for locally-grown produce as well as civic interaction.

Responding to the fact that by 2030 a full 20% of Singapore’s population will be retirement-aged, SPARK Architects sought to address high-density housing, sustainable architecture and urban agriculture in this complex.

The layered concept involves ground-level farms and gardens open to the citizenry as well as individual, upper-level plots that retired persons can work at their leisure.

Further, “the environmental sustainability and efficiency of ‘Home Farm’ [is] enhanced by proposed features such as the collection of rainwater, for use in aquaponic systems, and the use of plant waste for energy production.”

The curvilinear master plan provides maximum sun exposure and variegated views throughout the complex, encouraging residents to walk around to exercise, interact with neighbors and experience a diverse set of internal and city views.

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Slated to cost over $25 billion and take 5 years to complete, this incredible proposal starts a with a living sphere that spans over 1,500 feet below the surface of the ocean.

Designed by the Shimizu Corp’s, the spherical portion of the so-called Ocean Spiral forms a residential and commercial core from which a winding path spirals 9 further miles into the deep, ultimately terminating at the ocean floor.

Occupants would live and work both in triangular neighborhoods along the periphery as well as within a tapering, hourglass-shaped, skyscraper-like segment stretching up from the bottom to the top of the sphere’s center.

The ‘Earth Factory’ portion of the project below is set to use generate eco-friendly energy from temperature differentials and organically-driven chemical conversion processes.

For anyone wondering just when they can expect this marvel to materialize: its would-be creators concede the technology is just not in place yet to make it a reality, but hope and presume it will be soon.

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Opening last night in Nuenen, Holland, this illuminated cycling surface is free to the public, storing sunlight during the day to create stellar patterns to guide riders after dark. Its swirling shapes are recognizably inspired by one of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings.

Part practical lighting scheme and part installation art project, the path is located along a stretch of a bicycling route passing through Noord Brabant, the region from which van Gogh originated, which in turn connects various notable sites from his personal life and work. Its creator explains: “I wanted to create a place that people will experience in a special way, the technical combined with experience – that’s what techno-poetry means to me.”

The semi-abstract pixelated swirls are a high-tech reference to Starry Night, painted in 1889 and depicting an idealized view from the east-facing window of the painter’s asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City).

Studio Roosegaarde is known for “tactile high-tech environments in which viewer and space become one. This connection, established between ideology and technology, results in what Roosegaarde calls ‘techno-poetry’. His often interactive work connects people with art and people with people.”

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Seed bombs and shotgun shell sprouts are not the only weapons in a guerrilla war for urban gardens and green street art – moss is a great material that can be rapidly adapted and deployed to make statements on city surfaces as well.

Indeed, using mosses allows artists to go above and beyond the ground, shifting from horizontal to vertical spans for a different look and added visibility. And, as it turns out, creating moss wall art is not as difficult as you might guess – do-it-yourself directions are shown in detail below.

First, you have to gather some moss, naturally, which you can then mix with water-retention gardening gel and some buttermilk then blend together for a few minutes to form a gelatinous substance.

Shift your creation into a portable container then select and paint it onto a surface of choice – if the area will not be exposed to moisture, you may want to come back by and spray on some water from time to time.

Remember, too, that there are many ways to take this process further and create additional kinds of green artwork, mossy or otherwise.